Daily Archives: September 20, 2017

Anti-discrimination organisation Kick It Out has urged Manchester United to stop their fans from singing a “racist” chant about striker Romelu Lukaku.

Kick It Out had intervened after footage emerged of United fans singing the song, which goes to the tune of the Stone Roses hit Made of Stone, during the team’s 3-0 victory over Basel at Old Trafford in the Champions League last week.

The organization approached United directly in writing, asking them to act in a statement published by The Times a spokesperson for the organisation.

“Kick It Out is aware of the footage of the alleged racist chanting by supporters of Manchester United that emerged on Wednesday evening [13 September],” the statement reads. “The lyrics used in the chant are offensive and discriminatory. Racist stereotypes are never acceptable in football or wider society, irrespective of showing support for a player.”

“We have contacted Manchester United and will be working closely with them and the FA to ensure that the issue is addressed swiftly. The perpetrators can expect to face punishment.”

The chant was also believed to have been repeated during the Red Devil’s Sunday’s 4-0 win against Everton at the same venue when Lukaku, who joined United from the Merseyside club for a fee of £75m rising to £90m with add-ons in July, scored one goal and assisted another.

A blog by Manchester United has already asked the club’s fans to refrain from the song, although the club is also waiting to learn whether the chant about the Belgium forward is regarded as racist for criminal purposes and is therefore actionable.

“It’s a cheap and insulting stereotype that has no place in this day and age,” United fan Scott Patterson wrote in a post on The Republik of Mancunia.

Liverpool manager said he feels “really sick” with Liverpool’s defending after they conceded two poor goals. during a damaging defeat against Leicester City in the third round of the League Cup.

The Reds were also knocked out from the League Cup altogether after their 2-0 loss at Leicester, with the defeat also capping off a streak of four winless games in all competitions for the Merseyside club — a streak which also saw them concede 10 goals.

Despite making eight changes to the team that drew 1-1 against Burnley in the Premier League during the weekend, registering 21 shots at the King Power Stadium on top of 70% possession, Klopp’s team yielded no goals in the League Cup fixture.

Instead, it was Leicester who found the breakthrough at 69 minutes through Shinji Okazaki, which came after Liverpool failed to clear a corner and conceded yet another goal through set pieces — a problem that has plagued Liverpool since Klopp took over the club from Brendan Rodgers in 2015.

12 minutes later, Islam Slimani’s doubled Leicester’s lead through a superb left-footed shot following a throw-in, which in turn found the top-corner and effectively took the game out of Liverpool hands.

“The story of this game is really easy to tell,” Klopp said after the game, lamenting familiar failings. “We were the much better team in the first half, we didn’t score — that’s sometimes part of football. It was unlucky in one or two moments, maybe not clinical enough in others. But as long as we concede goals like we conceded today again, then it is quite difficult.”

“We should have scored three but as long as you leave games open, you have to defend. We always have to defend these situations better. The second ball after the corner, it’s close but it’s not offside. So we need to make it more clear that it’s offside.”

“The only thing you can do is to push up — we didn’t. With the second one it is a throw-in again. Everyone can imagine we know how to defend them but obviously we don’t do it, because always somebody else is doing it. It doesn’t feel too cool but it’s the truth.”

Tom Wainwright said it was “sick” that punters could bet on the former centre-back, while David Kelly said it was “pretty poor taste”.

Replying to Twitter users individually, Paddy Power — which also offered odds of 2,500/1 on Brummie rocker Ozzy Osbourne replacing Redknapp — has apologised for a “genuine error”.

The company later issued a statement to the Press Association, saying: “This was a genuine error, a trader re-used an old market as a template for this one, and didn’t notice that Mr Ehiogu was included. Obviously, that was a mistake, one which was rectified as soon as it was spotted, within minutes.”

A spokesman said customers were able to put money on Ehiogu for “less than five minutes” before the error was discovered, adding that nobody actually placed that particular bet.

“We would like to apologise to Mr Ehiogu’s family if they did see the tweet,” he said. “It was obviously a mistake and no offence was meant.”